Discogs

Do you use Discogs? After listening to a podcast today I’m wondering what its real purpose is, but it did sound good.

It’s good for buying and selling used vinyl/CD’s, especially rare stuff. It lists the average/high/low prices for everything, Which is good so you know the value of what you’re selling and when buying you know you’re not getting ripped off.

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I think the purpose of Discogs has changed over the years. Discussions of its history seem to suggest that it began mostly as a kind of public database for music. These days though it seems to be chiefly a marketplace, a bit like eBay for for music only.

I’ve never sold anything on Discogs, but I’ve bought quite a few CDs from Discogs that I could not source anywhere else, or in some cases they were available on Amazon for $100 or something and I got it on Discogs for $20-$25. There are some traps for newbies. When you inquire from a seller about an item, say to ascertain what the shipping costs will be, that’s taken as initiating an order, and you’re then expected to either follow through on that order or to cancel it promptly. On one occasion I made an inquiry and then forgot to check Discogs for several days due to being busy with other things; when I returned I found I had been giving a thumbs down as a buyer. The effect of that is that some sellers will then lock you out.

On the other hand I had a good experience once; I ordered a CD from the Netherlands and waited patiently for about two months for it to arrive. At that point I contacted the seller, who refunded my money with no dramas. Shortly afterwards it turned up in my letter box, having been delayed by inspectors from Australian customs! Of course I contacted him again and told him to invoice me for the item again. Karma, and all that.

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I’ve used it for years. As people have said above, it started as just a DB of releases, where anyone can add things. So it’s good for tracking variants of things. I’ve got quite a few things that weren’t on there but it’s getting better as time goes by.

I use it for buying loads of stuff these days.Only one bad experience where the seller listed an LP as a test press edition (which makes me aroused as a collector) and it was just the normal version. They claimed ignorance. But given the whole point is to log all the versions of releases carefully it didn’t quite wash.

Yes. We’ve had at least 2 threads on it too. Here’s one

I like Discogs, mainly for buying harder to find CDs at a reasonable price and you know what condition 2nd hand will be in.
Then I started cataloguing favourite bands I most most/all of their stuff and now I log new ones I get as well.
I find it satisfying and it’s quite nice to be able to see your collection (same reason I still buy physical). I’ve not got round to logging much of older stuff in my collection but maybe one day.

Yeah I use it quite a lot – to keep an eye out for rarer things at OK prices, for selling records if I don’t listen to them/need a bit of cash, but also more and more recently because I’m a designer and I’m interested in following the database rabbithole of how many sleeves such and such did for such and such a label, that kind of exhaustive (well, in theory) information all in one place is so useful.

I got burgled at university and lost basically my entire physical music collection. A lot if it was replaceable, but I’d pretty much resigned myself to certain items being irreplaceable. Since Discogs however, most of the stuff I had written off you can usually track down if you REALLY want it :+1:

I’ve recently started using it to sell CDs and vinyl and have found it excellent. There are no fees for listing stuff so you can just list as much as you like and leave it there until someone wants it. You only pay a small fee when you sell something. I’ve found stuff sells well to people all round the world.

The database is really useful because it helps you set fair prices by showing you how much the same item normally sells for and how rare/in demand it is.

I’ve bought stuff on it as well and have had a good experience - rare/old vinyl is usually available much more cheaply than on eBay.

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I only started buying vinyl around a year ago but I have found Discogs incredibly useful in helping me decide which version of a particular record to buy. I’ve learnt there can be huge differences in sound and pressing quality across different pressings of the same album, and the user reviews on Discogs are really helpful for sussing these out.

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I also like looking at the sleeve photos submitted by users which offer more than just the front cover image supplied by most online retailers.

Discogs is fucking mint for getting rare vinyl, especially 90s stuff, for a price that doesn’t make me wanna puke.

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Also use it now and then alongside the Steve Hoffman forum to see if a certain pressing is good or not.

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My day job is listing items for sale on Discogs, make of that what you will.
Definitely tempted to use it to get rid of some cassettes I own, as I can send them to a loving home that’s more enthused about the cassette comeback than me, and some CDs that I haven’t touched in years.

sounds pretty decent tbf, especially if you get a chance to listen as part of the grading. Do you get paid per listing?*
*don’t answer if you don’t want to!

The only listening I do is when I’m not sure if a record is listable, so I’ve gotta test it on my record player. All I’ll say is that I aim to list one record per minute, and it’s the most stable income I have at the moment!

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I love Discogs and use it to sell some of my own collection, plus other peoples that I buy in (hey, if you’re in Brighton and want to sell yours, hit me up!)

Have done around 1100 orders, quite a few trips to the post office

erm nope, ordering a thing and contacting a seller are very different.

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Well, this was in the early days of my experience with Discogs, so I guess maybe I asked the seller a question without realising I had placed the order. It’s a while ago now. I do know for sure that I had not got to the payment stage.

Decided to join it. It is initially pretty difficult to navigate I’m finding.